Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Ain't It The Truth


*an excerpt from Mormon Mommy Wars

"I’m no scrapbooker, but that’s mostly because I’m lazy and not very artistic. I know women who have made phenomenal scrapbooks for their children, and not because they are motivated by some sort of crazy Mormon guilt scrapbooking gene, but because *gasp*, they enjoy it. Yeah, this is unfathomable to me, right up there with people who take a break from blogging to sew stuff .

But in scrapbooks, there are no pictures of poop. There are no pictures of dirty, grubby children, unless you are pointing out how completely cute they are covered in food in their high chair, or how much fun they had playing in the mud. In scrapbooking, everybody is well dressed, happy, and having a great time.

In blogging, children finger paint with poop from their own diapers, spread it all over their faces, and feed it to the dog. If the kids are covered in food, it’s a good bet that the mom is too, and that mud pie? Well, let’s just say an apple pie might be nicer to the carpet.
Basically, scrapbooks are there to show you the shiny stuff. Blogging is there to show you the poop.
Here a few scenarios I’ve whipped up to further illustrate my point. Feel free to add your own:


A day at the beach:
Scrapbook: Little Sister had a great time at the beach! She laughed at the water, waved at the seagulls, and thought digging in the sand was so fun! A great family bonding moment.

Blog post: Little Sister ate about 3 pounds of sand, got some in her eyes, and cried all the way home.

Learning to walk:
Scrapbook: Our little girl is growing so fast! Look at her standing up by herself–she’s such a little doll!

Blog post: She climbed up the stairs without me knowing, tripped on her own feet, tumbled to the landing below and got a bruise on her head. At the grocery store, everybody thinks I’m a child abuser.

Playing with her older brother:
Scrapbook: Little Sister just LOVES her older brother Jay! They laugh and play together like they’ve been friends forever. It’s so nice to have them getting along!

Blogging: Jay gets really bugged when his baby sister tries to play with his toys, and has taken to poking her in the stomach with his stocking feet to keep her away from his Legos.

Family togetherness:
Scrapbook: I love my kids–they are such a blessing! I can’t imagine life without them.

Blogging: Remember when we used to sleep? That was the sweet life.

Do you agree with this assessment about blogging? Is this why we blog, to see that there are messier parts of life that don’t get put in the scrapbook?

Please discuss.

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2 comments:

DeLaina said...

LOL Natalie-this made me laugh right out loud. Yes, blogging is the down and dirty grit of life, (like drinking elephant poop to survive?) but that's precisely why I like it. I can be me and share my downfalls and hopefully not be judged for having them.

Imagine spending thousands of dollars on scrapbook supplies to be used to document "real" life. It will never happen. Long live blogs!!!

House of Mellor said...

Natalie, you made me laugh so hard I'm crying. My sweet Drew keeps on saying, "Mom will you add that to my scrapbook?" The problem is there are volumes of his first year of life and then after that I stopped. Jay, Ty, and Brielle have nothing but a stack of pictures that I couldn't tell them how old they were if they wanted me too and Brielle hasn't even hit a year yet. I'll just have to give them a link to the blog so they know they had fun as a kid.

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